


old scars, future hearts

by dyintherain



Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Angst, Drinking, Joy from RV appears briefly, Kim Dongyoung | Doyoung-centric, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-08
Updated: 2020-12-08
Packaged: 2021-03-10 01:20:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,160
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27956048
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dyintherain/pseuds/dyintherain
Summary: In a parallel world, Doyoung wakes up with the memory of a lost love.
Relationships: Kim Dongyoung | Doyoung/Lee Taeyong
Comments: 31
Kudos: 83





	old scars, future hearts

**Author's Note:**

> i originally intended to write this for a little wonder’s soulmates round, but i’ve had a hard time keeping it to 3k or less. title is from a song by all time low (but the song itself doesn’t have anything to do with the fic hehe). the whole story is inspired by a piece by Trista Mateer, which is linked in the end notes for spoiler-y reasons :>
> 
> (maybe listen to 'lightbulb' as you're reading this? idk)

i.

It was the first thing on Doyoung’s mind that night, when he first opened his eyes: A name. _A boy._ He didn’t know who the boy was—wasn’t even sure that the name was a person. Not at first. But then—

_Soft hair, the feel of smooth skin under his hands—_

He sat up suddenly, untangling his legs from a thick blanket and his arms from a large fluffy pillow. Looking around, he could see that it was dark around him save for a tiny corner at the other end of the room, illuminated by a faint white light slipping in through a tall window.

_—an open smile, open arms stretched wide._

Doyoung rubbed at his eyes, trying to think, but he felt so distant with the whirlwind that was his thoughts. Like he was in a theater, looking at images flash on the screen and unable to do anything except sit back and watch it all play in fast forward, too fast for him to catch anything except for a name and—

_Warm laughter. Sunshine on his back, a head on his lap._

His chest squeezed unexpectedly. 

He closed his eyes and tried to come back to his thoughts, to the name and the reel that came along with it, playing behind his eyes. But they were then and then not, and any fragment he could manage to hold on to was gone in less than a second.

_A red balloon. The back of a hand against his lips. A ring, glinting off the moonlight, then—_

_A door slamming, bells innocuously chiming in its wake. A tear-stained pillowcase._

Doyoung’s head hurt. 

The images on his mind flashed even more quickly, like a time-lapse of the sky—storm and thunder and starless night then bright midday sun. He blinked away all of it, but even after these snapshots faded from his thoughts, the name, _that_ name, was still echoing on his mind.

_...Taeyong._

ii.

There are a lot of bizarre things in Doyoung’s life, but he had long since come to terms with it. Like, for example, the fact that he had no past.

Well—that was not entirely true. He did have a past, two years to be exact, starting from that first night that he woke up.

“Don’t you find it strange?” he asked Johnny one night, a year ago. They were on the roof of their apartment building—Johnny sitting cross-legged on the floor with his back against the wall, Doyoung leaning on the adjacent railing and looking down over the blinking lights of the city. “... Not remembering anything beyond the first night you woke up?”

Johnny looked up at him. “Say that again and this time listen to the contradiction,” he replied, smirking.

Doyoung sighed. 

It was the way things were, he knew. You wake up—blink into existence, if he was being technical about it—live your life and only then start collecting memories. But he couldn’t explain how strange it felt to him, how it seemed like a constant itch under his skin and how, ever since that night, he’d been chasing the ghost of memories he felt he had before he’d even existed in this life.

 _Soft hair, open smile, sunshine, a red balloon_.

“Did you…” Doyoung started, then bit his lip. In his peripheral view, he saw Johnny incline his head. “Did you have any memories, your first night?” he finally managed to say.

Johnny’s brows furrowed. “Dude, what are you on?”

Doyoung breathed out a laugh. “I’m sorry, I know I’m not making any sense.”

Johnny wordlessly handed over the bottle he’d been nursing for most of the night, then slowly stood up to join him on the railing. Doyoung took a small sip, reveling in the way the liquid burned his throat.

A beat of silence. Then, “How would I have any memories when it’s literally my first night in the world?” Johnny ventured.

 _That’s the thing_ , Doyoung thought. He was supposed to wake up with a clean slate like everyone else, not with a boy’s name on his lips and a yawning ache in his chest.

“Never mind,” he said instead, shaking his head.

Johnny nudged his shoulder. “Is this about that Taeyong guy again?”

“I—”

“Maybe he’s just a dream, Doyoung.”

Doyoung took a deep breath and looked up at the sky. _Maybe_.

iii

“He loves this song,” Doyoung muttered absent-mindedly, looking up at the invisible speakers overhead the grocery store aisles.

Johnny turned to him, dropping the snacks gathered in his arms in the cart that Doyoung was leaning into. “Who?”

Doyoung blinked at him, for a moment not realizing that he said it out loud. “Taeyong,” he muttered through pursed lips.

Johnny shook his head. “You’re getting obsessed.”

“It’s not like that!” Doyoung protested, rolling the cart forward to follow Johnny through the next aisle. “These thoughts just… come to me. I can’t help it.” He sighed, parking the shopping cart and reaching up to pick out some noodles from the shelf. “It’s… it would come to me so randomly, you know? Like, I would be walking down the street and see a flash of blue out of the corner of my eye or, or smell citrus, or something and just… be reminded of him. Which I know is stupid, because—”

“Because he’s not real?” Johnny had a slight smile playing on his lips. Doyoung wanted to smack him.

Oh, how he longed to see the day Johnny would eat his words.

And he knew it would come, too, because—because Doyoung could see the future.

He would never admit it to anyone, he wouldn’t even say it out loud to himself. _It’s crazy._ But it was the only way he could explain, well, Taeyong.

For a long time, he did consider that Johnny was right—that Taeyong was just a dream, a vivid and cruel one at that, someone who did not exist beyond Doyoung’s weird... _memories_ (for lack of a better term he thought he could use) from the first night he woke up.

But then.

One night when he was walking home, his body turned to the side to dodge the crowd of commuters rushing to the opposite direction, and the world stilled, just for a moment, when he caught a flash of blue hair darting around the next corner, too fast for him to make out the face it belonged to but not fast enough for his brain to project an image behind his eyes: of the same shade of blue and a red balloon—Doyoung had an epiphany.

Those flashes from his first night may not be _memories_ , after all, but glimpses of a future he was still heading towards.

And maybe Taeyong was not a made-up dream, nor a person from a nonexistent past.

No, maybe Taeyong was a boy in his future.

iv.

“Okay, I feel like I’m being pranked right now but _holy shit._ ”

Johnny was staring at him, eyes wide and mouth agape. Doyoung leaned back on the soft cushion of the couch with a satisfied smirk. Across from them, the TV hummed quietly, volume lowered down to almost muted by Johnny a few moments ago as the sports program he was watching started to wrap up on the screen.

“You could—you _could_ predict the future,” Johnny exclaimed, a little breathlessly, even though they’d done nothing but sit on the couch for hours.

Doyoung cracked, in the end, and eventually told Johnny about the whole seeing the future thing. Doyoung refused to fully believe it himself, at first, but he was never one to just let something go—so the day he had his epiphany, he started pushing his brain to see more of the future, things beyond the curious flashes he had his first night in the world.

And finally, one day, he predicted rain.

He would have chucked it off to just a keen weather instinct, if he also hadn’t seen the whole day exactly as how it unfolded—him almost leaving his umbrella at home, his train being delayed for 5 minutes (not that long, really, but long enough for him to be late for a job interview), the elevator breaking down, a grumpy old man who called himself the HR Manager grumbling at him for wasting fifteen minutes of his time. A day of little unfortunate events, and Doyoung saw it all happen on his mind before reality caught up.

It was almost like— _deja vu_ , the way he saw the future. Like he wasn’t looking ahead, but just _remembering_. 

That was the day he told his roommate everything. 

Johnny just laughed, as Doyoung had expected, and it had been an infuriating week and a half of him enduring Johnny’s stupid smirk and offhand remarks ( _Catch!) (Hah, you didn’t see_ that _coming_?), and waiting for something to reveal itself to him, because, as Doyoung had come to realize, it wasn’t like he could _choose_ which futures to see.

Then today, Doyoung came out of his room to find Johnny sprawled out on their couch, watching a live basketball game, and Doyoung saw, _knew,_ the score twenty minutes before the game ended.

“107-62,” he said then, padding towards their tiny kitchen to prepare some lunch for himself. By the time he sat down next to Johnny on the couch with his bowl of bibimbap, the winning team was just scoring the last three points of the game.

“I wouldn’t call it predicting, exactly,” Doyoung was saying now to Johnny, who was still blinking at him in wonder.

“Is this a replay?” Johnny muttered to himself, turning to look at the screen again. Doyoung rolled his eyes.

“ _How?_ ” his roommate wondered, eyebrows knit in confusion.

“Like I said,” Doyoung explained, “it’s not exactly predicting.” Predicting somehow implied that there were a lot of possible paths that things could have gone down. But whenever he saw futures, as mundane as basketball scores they may be, he was always sure. An ‘ _it couldn’t have happened another way’_ level of certainty.

It was a strange thing, this ability. (If he could even call it that.) 

“It’s like watching a poorly-subbed video, you know where the subtitles are always a few seconds ahead of the audio?” he continued to explain to Johnny. “But I can’t really see anything that far out into the future.” _Except Taeyong_ , he wanted to add, but decided against it. “When I see something, it’s usually something that’ll happen like, only a few minutes later.”

Johnny was shaking his head. “Wow, I—that’s still kinda cool.”

“It is,” Doyoung nodded.

“I can’t believe you just spoiled the final score to me, though. I was looking forward to that game.”

“Please, it was kind of obvious where it was headed.”

“Still, the _final_ score.”

Doyoung laughed then stood up to take his now empty bowl to the sink. “That’ll teach you not to meet everything I say with disbelief,” he called back.

From the living room, Johnny laughed too. “ _God_ , this shit is unreal. What other stuff do you see in the future?”

“Not much, I told you I can mostly just see the future a few moments before it happens.”

Johnny turned his body to face him and placed his chin on the back of the couch, face deep in thought. “I take back what I said, it sounds more annoying than cool.” He stood up, walking over to the island that divided the living room and the kitchen. “I mean, you get to see the future but what you see is like, so near, that you wouldn’t be able to do anything about it.”

Doyoung shrugged. “Maybe that’s the point, it—things are bound to happen, and I just get to see them a few beats earlier than everyone else.”

A short-sighted vision of the future, as Doyoung had come to think of it. Yet another bizarre thing to add to his list. But he didn’t mind it much—it wasn’t like he ever relied on this ‘ability’ to be useful, anyway. 

Until, of course, the day he finally met Taeyong.

v.

The door to the coffee shop flung open, the little wind chimes hung above it tinkling loudly as it was slammed closed again.

Shivers ran through Doyoung’s skin as he knew, before the door even fully hit the jamb, before he even looked up from his phone, before he even saw with his own two eyes: first the blue hair and then the bright brown eyes it was almost falling into—before all these, he _knew._

Here, finally, was _Taeyong_.

His heart skipped, suddenly anxious. For the first time, he considered how it would have been neat, if he didn’t know the future mere seconds before it unfolded—leaving Doyoung with no compass, no time to prepare what to say and what to do, just the certainty deep in his gut that this blue hair, this delicate face, belonged to no other than the boy who, before this, seemed to only exist in his head.

Doyoung used to try so hard to _see_ how he would meet Taeyong, back when he first realized he could see the future but before he learned that he couldn’t really control exactly what part of it he could see. He used to imagine it would be something just like this—eyes meeting in a crowded room like in films, his soul or whatever it was that made him blink awake with only his name on his head, recognizing Taeyong’s.

And it _was_ like that, but what he didn’t expect was the look on the other boy’s face as he stared at him from several feet away, forehead creased and mouth turned down. How the moment felt so… loaded, like it was more than just dozens of tables, filled with students bent over laptops and groups of friends laughing and clutching steaming mugs, standing between the two of them.

Taeyong slowly made his way into Doyoung’s table, not breaking eye contact even as he dodged tables and randomly strewn chairs around the coffee shop.

“H-hi,” Taeyong breathed out when he finally reached him ( _and it was insane_ , Doyoung had the time to think, _how it just felt right to call him_ Taeyong _in his head, before he could even introduce himself._ ) 

Behind his eyes, Doyoung suddenly saw a flash of him turning around, leaving him to follow the bright blue hue of his hair as he walked away. 

“Don’t go!” he blurted out before he could think about it. He was never able to prevent the futures he saw, but he was going to try this time.

Taeyong blinked at him. “I—I won’t.”

Doyoung exhaled in relief.

“It’s just, _who are you_?” Taeyong whispered, then shook his head before Doyoung could think of what to reply. “That was stupid, I’m sorry. _I’m_ the one who came over here and—” A nervous laugh. “It’s just, I saw you and you looked so… I don’t know why, but… _familiar_.”

He groaned, looking up at the ceiling and biting his lip. “God, you must think I’m crazy.”

Doyoung shook his head. “No, I—not at all.” 

_Want to hear something crazier?_ he said in his head as he stared at the boy in front of him. _I woke up in this world knowing your name_.

“I’m Doyoung,” he said aloud instead.

Taeyong looked back down at him. “Taeyong,” he said, holding out his hand. _I know_ , Doyoung had to bite his tongue from blurting out. He took the offered hand instead—a distant part of him knowing it was a hand he would kiss, but not just yet.

“Have a seat?” he asked, tentatively.

Taeyong offered him a small smile. When he pulled up the chair across from him, Doyoung thought it sounded a little like things finally falling into place.

And when they finally left the coffee shop—together, after hours of talking and trying to get to know each other, trying to make sense of the invisible thread that somehow brought them to the same place, at the same time—and Taeyong turned, heading for the door - Doyoung realized that his earlier vision was not, after all, of Taeyong walking away, but leading the way home.

vi.

Johnny was being stupid.

“So, you _are_ real.” He was looking at Taeyong, but Doyoung felt the comment was more directed at him.

To his credit, Taeyong just smiled. “I guess I am.” He was just playing along, Doyoung knew—a slight furrow on his brows even as his eyes were twinkling at Johnny. Doyoung hadn’t told him yet, about how he could see some of the future and Taeyong was the first one he ever saw from it. 

How could he? Almost three years living with the fact and it still sounded crazy.

Doyoung got up from the couch. “I’m going to get some water. Taeyongie?” 

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Johnny mouth ‘ _Taeyongie?’_ back to him. He mentally flipped him off.

Taeyong shook his head, “No, I’m good.”

Johnny walked up to him as he was opening the fridge. “God, you look absurdly happy.”

Doyoung turned, ready to shoot some sarcastic remark, but he paused when he saw a genuine smile lighting up Johnny’s face. He sighed instead, “I _am_ , Johnny.” He looked over at the living room, watching Taeyong flip through Johnny’s coffee-table books collection. “Is it crazy? To fall this fast, this _deep_ , just… oh god, just three months after I’ve met the guy?”

Johnny pursed his lips. “You know what? Normally I would say yes, but well, it’s you.”

Doyoung chuckled. He didn’t think it was crazy, either. Falling in love with Taeyong felt as inevitable as the occasional glimpses of the future he got. Maybe he’d even go so far as to say that it wasn’t _falling_ in love at all—just stepping into the love that he knew deep inside was always there, right from the very first night he knew his name.

When he dropped Taeyong off to his place, later that night, a giddy smile was still playing on his lips from his hushed conversation with Johnny in the kitchen. He always knew Johnny supported him, despite all the teasing and taunting—but knowing that Johnny was happy for him... it made Doyoung even happier.

He was too deep in his thoughts that he almost missed Taeyong’s whispered question as he unlocked his door—

“ _Move in with me?”_

It took a few seconds for Doyoung to string a coherent reply, Taeyong staring at him with eyes shining the whole time.

“Johnny… Johnny would be bummed.”

Taeyong’s face dropped, along with the hand that was gripping his doorknob. “Oh.”

“No,” Doyoung quickly backtracked, waving a hand. “He’ll manage. I’m just saying… he’d be bummed,” he said, as a smile grew on his face. 

Taeyong’s slowly followed suit. “So is that…”

Doyoung was full-on grinning now. “A yes? Yes, it’s a yes.”

vii.

Doyoung was on Taeyong’s bed— _their_ bed—lying sideways and face-to-face with him. One hand was tucked under his head while the other was draped around Taeyong’s waist; Taeyong was half-asleep, a small smile playing on his lips as his eyelids drooped lower and lower. 

Doyoung had never been more in over his head.

“That day, at the coffee shop,” Taeyong was saying— _slurring_ , sleep thick on his mouth. “I didn’t… still don’t… don’t know why, but it hurt _so much_ to look at you.”

Doyoung curled his fingers tighter around Taeyong, the hem of his shirt bunching up in his hand. He tried to smile, even though Taeyong probably couldn’t even see him clearly through his half-closed eyes.

He hadn’t forgotten the look on Taeyong’s face when they first saw each other at the coffee shop, uncertainty like a cloud over his features, but Doyoung shrugged it off as confusion over seeing someone that felt so familiar and a stranger at the same time. After all, he felt the same way.

But hearing him describe it as _hurt_ —

Doyoung was happy with Taeyong, he truly was. Looking at him felt like being out in the sun, all contentment and happiness. But sometimes it felt like looking at the moon on quiet nights, too, nostalgic and weighed too heavy in his heart.

“Love isn’t supposed to hurt this much, don’t you think?” Taeyong murmured, before finally falling asleep.

viii.

As it turned out, Doyoung couldn’t actually see the future _at all_.

ix.

Doyoung came to the realization one weekend in June, almost three years into their relationship.

Taeyong just finished recording his latest Soundcloud track and was bored out of his mind. Doyoung was stuck on a project he took home from work. A sunrise picnic in the park seemed like the best solution for both.

It was still dark when they got there, but a lot of people were already situated on the benches or in blankets laid on the grass. Taeyong skipped ahead when they got to the entrance, and when Doyoung caught up with him, their own blanket was already laid out neatly along with a spread of some fruits and sandwiches that Taeyong prepared beforehand.

Doyoung smiled. And instead of taking his place on the empty space that Taeyong set aside for him, he sat on the grass just outside Taeyong’s corner of the blanket and hugged him from behind.

“I love you.”

Taeyong stilled, then turned around to look at him and give him a quick kiss on the tip of his nose. Doyoung’s lips involuntarily pulled up at the corners. 

“I love _you_ , but your butt is going to get all green from the grass. Sit on the blanket,” Taeyong chided.

Doyoung just smiled and leaned closer instead, one hand automatically moving up to rest on Taeyong’s nape.

The kiss was light, warm—everything that Taeyong was. Doyoung let himself get lost in it and tried to ignore the nagging feeling he’d been having the past few weeks, whenever Taeyong would smile and Doyoung felt like he was always on the cusp of losing him.

“Doyoung,” Taeyong pulled away long enough to say. “Hmm,” Doyoung murmured, eyes still closed, mouth moving on its own will to search for Taeyong’s. He felt his lips touch Taeyong’s cheek instead as the other giggled. “The sun’s rising, come on.”

Doyoung opened his eyes just in time to see the sun explode in sudden dark orange hues, filling up the sky with colors he wasn’t sure he even knew the name of. Taeyong silently reached out to grasp his hands, still wrapped around him, as he threw his head back to look up at the sky. 

He rested his chin on Taeyong’s shoulder and stared at his face instead—decided that the sunrise was even prettier reflected in Taeyong’s eyes.

_But he’d seen this before._

The thought came to him unbidden, making him sit up suddenly and prompting Taeyong to turn and peer at him curiously.

“Something wrong?”

Doyoung could only shake his head, mind whirring and heart beating fast. Taeyong scooted over to fully face him, face knit with worry. “You sure?”

“Yeah,” Doyoung said, gulping. He could make out his own tiny reflection in Taeyong’s eyes. Behind him, the colors of the sky were slowly dispersing—from the blanket of fire that it was just a few seconds ago, to a bright white yellow until the sun was just a tiny speck of light hanging above them.

 _That was not a sunrise_ , was Doyoung’s ridiculous thought even though he had literally just seen the sun rise to the sky.

“Doyoung, I’m worried,” Taeyong’s voice broke through his thoughts.

Doyoung tried to focus on him—blinked, then shook his head. “I’m sorry, I’m not… I’m suddenly not feeling well.”

Taeyong’s soft palm was on his forehead in a second. “You don’t feel hot.” Doyoung shook his head, took Taeyong’s hand and placed a chaste kiss upon the back of it. Taeyong almost involuntarily tried to pull away, even as Doyoung could see a faint blush creeping up his cheeks.

“I’m fine, Taeyongie. I don’t think it’s a fever, it’s just…”

Taeyong was nodding before he could finish. “No, okay. I get it. I’ll just pack this up, then.” 

Doyoung stared down guiltily at the picnic spread Taeyong had worked hard to prepare for this afternoon. 

“Oh hey now, none of that,” Taeyong scolded, seeing the look in his eyes. “We could always do this another time, when you're feeling better.” He reached out to put a gentle hand against Doyoung’s cheek.

When they got home, the afternoon sun was at its highest, the heat almost unbearable, especially coupled with the thoughts running through Doyoung’s head. He went straight to their room—Taeyong squeezing his hand and giving him a confused and worried smile on the way—and parked right in front of the AC unit as he started up his laptop.

 _Sunrise time-lapse_ , he typed on the search bar as soon as the browser loaded. It was like he was moving on auto-pilot as he clicked on the first video result he got, downloaded it, then fed it into an online video-reversal software. Doyoung swallowed hard, absent-mindedly tapping his fingers on his desk as the reversed video loaded.

His hands were shaking as he pressed play.

He knew what he would see, of course—had been picturing it in his head ever since the _thought_ came to him suddenly this afternoon. But he needed to see it play out in front of his eyes, needed physical proof outside of his own head.

The reversed video had looped twice now—afternoon sun high up in the sky, setting off into a spectacular display of brilliant red and orange, until it dipped, dipped down into the horizon, making way for the night sky.

 _A sunset_.

Doyoung fell back to his chair and despite everything, let out a huge sigh of relief. This made sense—in the same way that Taeyong made sense, in the same way that his so-called ability to see the future didn’t.

As crazy as it sounded, Doyoung felt that it was no less crazy than all the bizarre things he’d come to accept over the years—

_Time was moving backwards here._

x.

A thick stack of bond paper dropped heavily on the table in front of Doyoung, making him jump. Johnny plopped down beside him on the couch soon after.

“You seem so… distracted these days,” Johnny observed, handing him a glass of bourbon. 

Doyoung raised an eyebrow at this. “I asked for apple juice.” 

Johnny just shrugged. “Hey, I’m the host and you no longer live here.”

Doyoung half-glared at him, but drank the liquid anyway. “Agh,” he grimaced, putting down the glass on the table, then picked up the stack of paper Johnny had dropped there. “A new manuscript?”

He glanced at the big bold letters in the front page: _Red String of Fate._ Doyoung turned to Johnny with a smirk.

“They said it’s a working title,” Johnny explained. “And well, the soulmates trope sells well. It’s actually pretty good. You wanna read it?”

Doyoung thought about it. Eh, what the hell. “Sure.”

Johnny worked at a publishing house and was always bringing home manuscripts for Doyoung to read, back when they still lived together. It was technically not allowed (and in violation of probably a dozen different non-disclosure agreements) but it wasn’t like Doyoung would even have the urge to broadcast the played-up storylines and cliche tropes in them.

“Wait,” Doyoung paused in flipping through the manuscript. “Didn’t you show me this one already?”

Johnny frowned, looking down at the page with him. “No, it was literally submitted just this morning.”

Doyoung straightened up suddenly.

“What?” Johnny asked him.

Flipping through the pages awakened a memory inside Doyoung—a _memory_ , because that’s really what it was. Not a glimpse of a future, as he had naively thought before.

He started frantically scouring through the manuscript, a single line echoing inside his head. A line he knew, he _remembered,_ was from this work.

_Don’t you cry, I’ll find you in another life._

He let out a loud gasp when he finally found it. Johnny peered down at the page, a little uninterested. “Don’t tell me you’ve seen yourself reading that in the future or something.”

Doyoung gulped. He hadn’t told anyone else yet about what he discovered that day in the park. “Yeah… something like that.”

It would be too crazy. Johnny may have accepted his seeing-the-future spiel but _time moving backwards_? That would be something else entirely.

“So, what? You now know the whole plot without even reading it?”

Doyoung could remember some parts of it, yes, but not the entirety. “Not really,” he admitted to Johnny. “I just uh, saw that particular line.”

“‘ _Don’t worry, I’ll find you in another life’?_ ” Johnny read from the page held up in place by Doyoung’s finger.

“Yeah,” Doyoung sighed. “That one.”

xi.

The memories started coming back to him more vividly, from the moment that he realized what was actually going on.

It was both a boon and bane to Doyoung’s life—on the one hand, he could see the ‘future’ more clearly too, because it was essentially a memory for him, but on the other, everything felt so… weird now. Doyoung had to stop every now and then and let his brain process what was happening—when the hands of the clock on their wall moved from right to left, when the night turned to afternoon then to morning then to dawn, when they celebrated Johnny’s twenty-second birthday _after_ his twenty-third.

He’d been living in this reality for almost six years now, but once he saw everything in a different perspective, it felt like his world was turned upside down. (When he thought about it, it really was.)

It was Taeyong’s twenty-first birthday, the first time Doyoung met him. 

Not at the coffee shop—no, that was the _last_ time they saw each other in Doyoung’s… what even was it? Past life? Alternate universe?

“I need your help,” Doyoung remembered Jaehyun—an old college classmate that he had yet to meet in this life, saying to him as he was leaving their building after a class.

Jaehyun was holding up what seemed to be a dozen red balloons in each hand, all wildly swinging against the wind. Doyoung just stared at him, until Jaehyun sheepishly smiled and rubbed at his nape, the balloons following the gesture.

“It’s my friend Taeyong’s birthday, you know him?”

Doyoung shook his head.

“Oh, well.” Jaehyun cleared his throat. “Me and my friends wanted to surprise him with twenty-one red balloons because he’s, well, turning twenty-one… The idea is to give him these randomly throughout the day, like one person at a time until he gets all twenty-one by the time his last class ends and…” he trailed off, noticing that Doyoung was just standing there looking all confused. 

Jaehyun tried again, “Long story short, Lucas—supposedly one of the er, twenty-one—couldn’t make it to campus today so uhm,” he took one red balloon out of the bundle, held it out to Doyoung meekly, and said the words that, unknown to both of them at the time, would change Doyoung’s life forever.

“I was wondering if you could be his substitute?”

xii.

Doyoung was dreaming, except—

Except these are all memories that actually happened, he was sure of it. Memories that he managed to carry over from a past life, or from a parallel world—he still wasn’t sure.

It was reminiscent of his first night here, when his mind was nothing but a series of flashes—but now they’re more vivid, no longer playing in fast forward but taking their sweet, sweet time—and the name, the only name that ever mattered.

_‘Taeyong?’_

_Doyoung felt a little annoyed at Jaehyun, but mostly at himself, for agreeing to do it in the first place. ‘I wouldn’t even know who to give this red balloon to,' he’d complained but Jaehyun just smiled, ‘Bright blue hair, you can’t miss it.'_

_‘Taeyong, right?’_

_Doyoung couldn’t help but smile, seeing the birthday boy. Jaehyun was right, he couldn’t miss it_ —him— _not just because of the hair but also because of the strings of red balloons he already had clutched in his hands_.

 _Red and blue, a beautiful contrast_. _With the backdrop of the noon sky_ — _an image that would stay with him forever._

-

_A first kiss, under the awning of the bar where Taeyong had his birthday party_ — _the very same twenty-first birthday, just a few hours after they first met._

_‘This damn lightbulb is giving me a headache,’ Doyoung whispered under his breath when they broke away._

_Taeyong giggled breathlessly. ‘It’s been like that since forever, I’m honestly surprised it hasn’t burned out yet.’_

_The fluorescent light above them continued to flicker_ —blink, blink— _like a horror movie, but Doyoung couldn’t bring himself to feel even a tiny bit scared, not with Taeyong in front of him, blush high on his cheeks and a pool of stars in his eyes._

_‘Can I kiss you again?’ Doyoung murmured._

_Taeyong smiled and reached up over his head, switching off the light entirely, and leaned closer._

-

_Hand-in-hand, walking through the night market, seeing a spiked rose-gold ring in one of the stalls_ —

‘ _Doyoung… what?’_

_Doyoung was down on one knee, with the biggest smile he’d ever had in his life, surrounded by a crowd of locals and tourists alike, cooing and gushing at the sudden proposal happening in front of their eyes._

_Taeyong dropped and knelt along with him, eyes shining. ‘Oh my god, you’re just drunk!’_

_And maybe Doyoung_ was _a little bit tipsy, but it didn’t change the fact that when he looked at Taeyong then, all smiling and face flushed from the cold_ —

 _And the ring, its spikes glinting off the tiny slice of moonlight peeking through the stalls’ tent ceilings_ —

_‘I wanna see your stupid face forever,’ was what came out of all his garbled thoughts._

_Taeyong bit his lip. ‘We’re going to have a lot to plan.’_

_‘Is that…’_

_‘A yes?’ Taeyong was grinning even as a single tear fell from his eye. ‘Yes, it’s a yes.’_

-

_‘In the middle of the fucking night market, Doyoung,’ Taeyong cried out to him, two months later. ‘Surrounded by greasy food stalls, and with a cheap, knock off ring from a random stall!’_

_Doyoung flinched. ‘You said you loved it.’_

_‘Maybe I realized I deserved to be more than an afterthought.’_

_‘Well, you missed the fucking point,’ Doyoung spat._

_(But what he wanted to say was_ — _Taeyong was never an afterthought. That if he_ was _, he wouldn’t be thinking of wanting to marry him, right in the middle of the fucking night market, of all places. And that if he could, he would have plucked out a star right out of the sky that night to propose to him with_ — _would have bought him a damn Cartier, if he’d had time.)_

_He found Taeyong later on the bed, his tears pooling down on the pillowcase. Doyoung laid down beside him, sideways and face-to-face._

_‘Love isn’t supposed to hurt this much, don’t you think?’_

-

_‘Please don’t go,’ Doyoung pleaded, his voice breaking._

_But Taeyong was already turning away, and Doyoung was left to stare at his retreating back, at that mop of vibrant blue hair he knew he might never see again._

_The door of the coffee shop slammed close at Taeyong’s exit, the wind chimes becoming just another reminder of what Doyoung lost._

_-_

_He needed another chance._

_He’d find Taeyong in another life, and he’d make it right._

_Next time._

“Doyoung? Hey.”

A gentle voice coaxed Doyoung back into consciousness. He opened his eyes, heart still beating wildly, and found Taeyong’s face mere inches away from his own.

“What—what happened?” Doyoung asked. His throat felt so dry, and his voice came out all scratchy.

Taeyong straightened up, fussing with the blankets tangled around Doyoung. “You were screaming my name in your sleep.” He frowned, “And not the good kind.” He tried to smirk, but Doyoung could still see a hint of worry in his eyes.

Doyoung stared at him for a long moment. Taeyong was looking more and more like how he was when he and Doyoung first met. _It’ll be his twenty-first birthday soon,_ he realized.

They were running out of time.

xiii.

“You really sure you’re alright?” Taeyong asked, probably for the tenth time that day.

“Yeah, why?” Doyoung replied, attempting nonchalance, also for the tenth time.

Taeyong shrugged. “It’s just… well, I don’t want to seem too clingy or anything but—”

“Taeyongie,” Doyoung interrupted, standing up from his perch at the kitchen stool and going over to where Taeyong was half-lying on the carpet, back against the couch’s legs. “Are you seriously still thinking that? We’ve literally just celebrated our fourth year anniversary.”

Taeyong smiled. “It’s just, you really seemed a bit distant lately.”

“I’m sorry… it’s just… busy,” Doyoung explained lamely. 

“No, no, I understand,” Taeyong clarified, scooting a bit closer. He peered up at Doyoung and ran a finger over the circles underneath his eyes. “I’m just worried, is all. You’ve been working too hard with barely any rest these days.”

They were both back in college, and Doyoung was drowning in a senior’s load of schoolwork. (If there was one thing Doyoung absolutely hated about this world, it was going back to school after all this time.)

But his dark circles were not really from burning the midnight oil.

Every time he looked at Taeyong these days, all he could see was a remembrance of what he once lost. And what he would lose again, soon.

He’d spent many sleepless nights, dreading and wondering about Taeyong’s twenty-first birthday. He wondered if they would just stop... knowing each other, after that. Or if the world would reset and move forward again. And Doyoung would be stuck in an endless loop—different endings, same story.

It was so unfair, how limited the options he had were. And how no matter how he looked at it, he couldn’t see an ending where he could get to keep Taeyong.

It was so fucking unfair.

xiv.

“Do you believe in soulmates?” he finally got the nerve to ask Taeyong one night, in the middle of doing the dishes. 

Taeyong stopped rinsing a plate and looked over at him where he was leaning against the kitchen counter, drying a wine glass with a towel.

“Well, yeah. You’re mine,” Taeyong answered, eyes sparkling with a hint of mischief. 

Doyoung pouted at him, “I’m serious. Do you?”

Taeyong turned back to the sink and turned on the faucet again, but Doyoung could almost hear him thinking amid the running water. “Like, the idea of two people being so connected, or being predestined by fate that no matter what, they would find each other in life?”

Doyoung nodded. “And the next life,” he murmured, not loud enough for Taeyong to hear.

“I guess I do. Is it cheesy?” Taeyong turned to him. “Okay, maybe I _was_ joking earlier when you first asked me, but now that I think about it, I kind of think... it’s true. How would you explain the day we met?” He turned the faucet off again, and placed the last of the plates on the drying rack. “My eyes were immediately drawn to you, then you looked up at me and… I know it’s cliché but I feel like I was already in love with you then.”

Doyoung had to flinch a little. _How would you explain_ —

It was rhetorical on Taeyong’s part, he knew, but he still felt guilty that he actually _knew_ how to explain it. At the back of his mind, a nagging thought was telling him that it’s unfair, too, for Taeyong, him holding back what he knew about their past—their _future_ now.

Taeyong walked over and picked up his own clean towel, one hand coming to rest on Doyoung’s waist as he reached behind him to help him dry the rest of the dishes. Doyoung’s chest squeezed at the gesture. What he wouldn’t give to not lose Taeyong again.

They stayed like that for a long moment—Taeyong pressed up against Doyoung’s side even though the kitchen was spacious enough—until, “If you, uh, if you could see how we would end… would you want to know?” Doyoung asked cautiously.

Taeyong dropped the towel he was holding. “What?” he leaned away sharply. “ _How we would end_?”

Doyoung quickly shook his head. “No! I didn’t mean it like _that._ ”

“Well,” Taeyong scoffed, bending over to pick up the towel from the floor and tossing it angrily towards the sink. “Tell me now if you’re in this for the long haul or if you’re just waiting for us to end so I could avoid wasting my time, Doyoung.”

“No, no. Ugh,” Doyoung groaned, as Taeyong stared at him with crossed arms. “I told you I didn’t—”

“What do you mean then?”

“It’s hard to explain. And I would sound completely crazy,” Doyoung said, jaw clenched.

“Better than how you’re sounding right now,” Taeyong raised an eyebrow.

Doyoung sighed deeply. He did set himself up for this one.

“The thing is. I think… this is my second life. Or well, I don’t know really, but I can only remember one other—”

“Pause.” Taeyong threw up both hands in front of his face. “Doyoung, I don’t have time for this.”

“I’m telling you the truth! I told you I would sound completely crazy, didn’t I?”

Taeyong stared at him for a stretched out minute, unblinking. Finally he huffed out a frustrated sigh and waved a hand to Doyoung. “Fine, then.”

Doyoung took a deep breath, steeling himself, and finally told Taeyong everything.

xv.

Taeyong was sitting on the couch, legs tucked underneath him and arms wrapped around himself. Doyoung was perched on the kitchen counter, wanting nothing more than to rewind and take back the last thirty minutes.

He found it ironic, wishing to turn back time in a world where it was already moving backwards.

“My twenty-first birthday, huh,” Taeyong said under his breath. The apartment was quiet enough that Doyoung heard it loud and clear even though they were a few feet apart.

“I don’t know,” Doyoung huffed, a frustrated hand running down his face. “Of course, I’m not sure. For all we know, I just dreamed it all.”

Maybe he really was going crazy.

“And if you didn’t?” Taeyong looked up at him, eyes already shining with tears.

“I don’t know,” Doyoung whispered again.

Taeyong unfurled his knees, standing up from the couch. “I can’t believe you weren’t even planning to tell me.”

“Did it help?” Doyoung shot back. “Now that you know, did it even help? The only thing that came out of it is now we’re both miserable.”

Taeyong shook his head and started pacing through the living room. “So, what—you would have just let it happen? You would have just let yourself wake up one day and be alright with the fact that you wouldn’t know me anymore?”

There was a desperate tone in his voice that caught Doyoung off-guard.

He _hadn’t_ ever thought of those things. Was he really that complacent? Just willing to accept ‘fate’—not even bothering to find a way to make it work?

Maybe that’s why he was in this hellish situation in the first place. Maybe he didn’t really deserve a happy ending.

Taeyong stopped pacing and turned to him. “Why are we even fighting?” 

Doyoung deflated, coming over to hug him in the middle of the living room. “I don’t know,” he murmured against Taeyong’s shoulders. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you.”

Taeyong brought his arms around him, squeezing the back of his shoulders. “I understand why you kept it from me, but from now on,” he pulled away from the hug to stare straight into Doyoung’s eyes, “no more secrets, no more lies. Okay?”

Doyoung nodded.

Taeyong’s eyes suddenly widened. “I got it!” He untangled himself from Doyoung’s hug and rushed to the bedroom, coming out a few seconds later holding up a pen in one hand and a pad of post-its in the other.

“We’ll leave notes to ourselves, and that way we’ll remember,” he said, almost manic, plopping down on the carpeted floor and laying down the stationery on the coffee table.

Doyoung sank down beside him. “Yong, I don’t think—”

Taeyong turned to him, and Doyoung was surprised to see tears running down his cheeks, his eyes desperate. “That way, we’ll remember,” he repeated, voice breaking. “Promise you’ll remember me, Doyoung.”

Doyoung bit his lip. “You know I can’t,” he croaked out.

_No more secrets, no more lies._

“I can’t promise that, Taeyongie.”

xvi.

_‘Hi,’ the boy with the blue hair walked over to him with hesitant steps. ‘I don’t know you, but… I’m guessing that’s for me?’_

_Doyoung blinked. ‘Oh, uh yeah. Sorry.’ He awkwardly held out the red balloon he’d been carrying around campus for a good two hours now._

_Taeyong_ — _Doyoung remembered his name now_ — _smiled and took it from him. ‘Wow, do I really have so few friends that they had to ask a stranger to complete the twenty one?’ he chuckled._

 _Doyoung tried to laugh along with him. “Uh, Jaehyun said Lucas_ —”

_Taeyong waved him off with a hand, ‘I’m joking.' A sly smile. ‘Well, thanks for this.'_

_Doyoung nodded. He started to turn away, but_ —

_‘Hey, I didn’t get your name!’_

_Doyoung turned back with a smile. ‘It’s Doyoung.'_

_‘Doyoung. Huh, nice to meet you.’ Taeyong was looking at him with a glint in his eyes, and Doyoung found he couldn’t look away._

_‘Uh,’ Taeyong cleared his throat. ‘I have this party later. You should come, you being the bearer of one of my red balloons and all.’_

_Doyoung chuckled. ‘I guess I should. Yeah, why not? I’d love to.’_

_Taeyong bit his bottom lip, then let go of it, grinning wide. ‘It’s at Chain’s. You know it?’_

_Doyoung narrowed his eyes in thought. ‘I’ve heard of it.’_

_‘Cool. Well, find me later. Okay?’_

_Doyoung smiled. ‘I will.'_

xvii.

The lightbulb was flickering overhead, taking Doyoung back to one of his fondest memories.

Beyond this tiny awning they were standing under, the dark streets were punctuated only by a few streetlights and the ground was a little wet from the short-lived drizzle earlier in the day. Inside the bar, Taeyong’s friends were laughing, wearing goofy party hats and untying red balloons to have a helium singing contest.

Here, it was just him and Taeyong, almost back to when it all started.

“This damn lightbulb is giving me a headache,” Doyoung muttered.

Taeyong chuckled. “Is there a switch to this thing?”

Doyoung reached up over Taeyong’s head and flicked it off. “Here.”

It only got marginally darker, the lights from inside still illuminating Taeyong’s face. Doyoung closed his eyes anyway, and felt Taeyong’s forehead touch his own.

“I’m going to miss you so fucking much,” Taeyong whispered.

“Maybe we’d wake up tomorrow still in each other’s arms,” Doyoung thought aloud. “Wouldn’t that be silly?”

A quiet breath. “Yeah. That would be so… silly,” Taeyong gasped out the last word, and Doyoung felt his lips against his own before the sentence was even finished.

-

Taeyong only had three red balloons clutched in his hand this time.

“So, this is it,” Doyoung said with a sigh.

Taeyong grimaced. “I’m a little scared.”

Doyoung looked at him and reached out for his hand. He brought it to his lips, and this time Taeyong leaned into the touch instead of shying away.

“I can’t imagine waking up tomorrow and just… not know you anymore. I keep thinking about the people I must have known in this life, the ones I no longer remember,” Taeyong turned to him. “Do you remember any in yours?”

Doyoung shook his head. But at the back of his mind, he could think of one name.

 _Johnny_.

The roommate he met right after college, now gone from his present life. Already, Doyoung could barely remember anything about him except for his name and a faint outline of his face.

“I’ll really miss you, Doyoung-ah,” Taeyong whispered. “I think, even when my brain doesn’t know you anymore, my heart will remember.”

Doyoung gave him a small smile, taking in the red balloons swaying in the wind above his bright blue hair— _f_ _or the last time._ He didn’t have the heart to tell Taeyong that he didn’t think it worked that way.

“There’s always another life," Doyoung said instead. “Soulmates, remember?”

Despite everything, Taeyong let out a chuckle. “God, I wish it would be a more interesting one than this.”

They sat quietly, for a moment that was definitely longer than the original one they shared in some parallel life. Finally, Taeyong untangled one of the strings tied to his finger, and held it out for Doyoung.

“Find me later. Okay?”

Doyoung took Taeyong’s hand, squeezing it once, then pinched the thin string with his fingers. “I will, Taeyongie.”

With a shaky breath, Taeyong finally let go.

xviii.

Doyoung slowly opens his eyes, hands involuntarily rising up to his face to shield them from some bright lights over his head.

He sits up slowly, taking in the room around him. All four walls are stark white, and they blend together so seamlessly that Doyoung has to squint to make out where two sides meet. 

Doyoung hears the sharp clacking of pointed heels on a marble floor from somewhere—outside, he thinks. The sound grows louder, until finally, a tiny opening appears on the wall to his right. It ripples like water, and a tall woman with sleek straight black hair and sharply cut bangs framing her face walks through, wearing a white tailored jumpsuit and a vibrant red lipstick, the color standing out in contrast with everything else in the room.

Her face breaks open in a smile when she sees Doyoung staring at him.

“You’re awake!” she exclaims, voice softer than Doyoung expects it to be. She walks over to him, and only then does Doyoung realize that he’s lying on a bed, about twin-sized and covered in a soft white sheet.

“I’m Joy. I’m here to escort you to the next stop.”

Doyoung swallows—feels his throat scratch.

“Next… stop?” he asks, the question coming out hoarse from his lips.

“Oh, you must be thirsty after all that. Hold on.”

She turns to the wall in front of Doyoung’s bed and extends her hands through it. It ripples, like the one she came out from earlier. Like water—no, like a _cloud,_ Doyoung thinks. When she faces him again, she’s carrying a tray, a tall pitcher filled with water and a tiny glass in it. (What the…?) 

She sets it down gently at an empty spot in Doyoung’s bed.

“Where am I?” Doyoung asks as the woman—Joy—pours water into the glass then hands it over to him.

Joy steps back and fidgets with the tie on her waist. “Well, er. This is the afterlife.”

Doyoung almost spits out the water he’s gulping down. “What?” he almost yells, then wipes his mouth with the back of his hand.

“I understand it’s a shock,” Joy tries to placate him, “but that’s what I’m here for. I’m your personal coach for the transition.”

Doyoung shakes his head, feeling like he’s dreaming.

“I assure you, you’re not.”

He looks up at Joy, who smiles meekly. “I can sort of… read minds around here.”

Doyoung runs a hand through his face. “How did I even— _you know_?”

Joy gulps. “Ah, well now. We prefer not to let you know about that once you’re here. Kind of poisons the whole experience, you know?”

“But I was just—on campus, and Taeyong…”

Joy smiles fondly at the mention of the name. “I know, I’m really glad you picked that.”

“... _Picked_?”

Joy’s eyes widen and she brings a hand to her lips. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t really mention this but...” she leans closer, eyes darting around, even though Doyoung can’t see any other person in the room except for the two of them. “When you first… came here, we had you choose a special bonus, before you fully integrate into the afterlife community, you know?”

Doyoung doesn’t.

“And you chose to relive your relationship with Taeyong.”

Doyoung’s lips purse in confusion, but Joy continues. “But of course, the higher-ups don’t allow life do-overs so we just… reversed time for you.”

Doyoung shakes his head, disbelieving.

“Taeyong…”

“He’s alive,” Joy assures him with a smile. “Well,” she exhales a wistful sigh, “he does miss you sometimes, of course.”

Doyoung’s heart clenches.

"But overall, he’s happy.”

“Will I get to see him again?” Doyoung asks, a little afraid of what the answer will be.

Joy presses her lips into a thin smile. “I’m afraid I can’t disclose that information. Now!” she says sharply, before Doyoung can follow up, “if you’ll follow me, we’ll get you registered over at Admissions.”

She turns gracefully, and soon her heels are click-clacking across the floor once again. Doyoung hastily throws his legs over the bed and runs to catch up to her.

“Wait,” Doyoung calls. “Tell me this at least, are soulmates, like, the concept of it—is it true?”

Joy looks back over her shoulders with a subtle smirk. “Yes. And that’s all I’m going to say about it.”

Doyoung touches her shoulder before she can walk away again. “How about...reincarnation?”

Joy pauses, then turns around to face him. “I’m afraid that’s another confidential matter,” she says cheekily.

But Doyoung doesn’t miss the tiny wink she sends his way before she turns again and starts walking.

_"If there is a universe parallel to us where time moves backwards then that means I blinked into existence already in love with you there. That means things there remind me of you and I still don’t know why but one day I will. One day I will because there is still a future there for us. I am running toward a future there where we will collide brilliantly one day and everything will make sense all of a sudden. Why I already knew the sound of your laugh. Why your name made me ache before I even met you. There will be time for us, even if it’s backwards. We will love each other very much and be friends for a long time after that and then one day I’ll wake up and not remember you at all. Which is to say maybe that universe is a kinder one or at least a place where it is easier to let go. Because there, I will forget, and here I have to carry love with me quietly forever."_

\- Trista Mateer

**Author's Note:**

> [link to quote](https://www.instagram.com/p/CAlIEVuFm7-/?igshid=qn95qund862o)
> 
> thank you (!!!) —to ado, for reading & providing v helpful feedback to this fic back when it was still in its 3k shell 🥺 and to karla! for reading the final draft and the overall support u.u ♡  
> [twt moodboard](https://twitter.com/doyuagenda/status/1336284068766314497?s=19) [cc](https://curiouscat.qa/dyintherain)


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